


Rewritten

by Cathryn



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathryn/pseuds/Cathryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhiannon Davies doesn't believe in the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewritten

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the tw_femficfest at LJ. Thanks to manikineko for the prompt!

Rhiannon had meant to stay on the fringes at her first star believers meeting.

She doesn't believe in them herself, not really. She's got eyes, hasn't she? She's seen the moon by itself in the black night sky as many times as anyone else has. But she doesn't want them thinking she's just turned up to have a laugh at the nutters the way she's heard people do sometimes. That's not why she's here. She's got her reasons, but she doesn't feel the need to explain them to a group of strangers, so her plan is to watch, to listen, and to keep her mouth shut.

It turns out, though, that she's vastly overestimated the number of believers in the area. She'd vaguely pictured a big conference room with a podium up front and rows of seats full of people cheering the speakers on. Instead, it's a little basement space with maybe a dozen people inside, quietly chatting in little groups. They all know each other, that she can see, and she hasn't a chance of quietly blending in. She freezes in the doorway for a second, panicking.

"It's all right," a voice says behind her, "we don't pounce and paint stars on your cheeks."

Rhiannon turns in surprise. The voice belongs to a woman with close-cropped brown hair. She's older than Rhiannon, and her face is tired and unhappy, but not unfriendly.

"At least," she adds, "we don't since Brian left."

Rhiannon laughs nervously. "I, uh, I think I have the wrong room." She's ashamed of her cowardice even as she speaks, but it took her weeks to even decide to come. She's not prepared for this intimate setting.

The woman studies her thoughtfully. "No, you don't," she says. "But no one's going to drag you in if you're not ready. You know, I was thinking of just poking my head in and then going for a drink. You want to come?"

If it's a technique for corralling nervous newbies, Rhiannon thinks, it's a good one. The prospect of a casual drink with one person is far more appealing and far less intimidating than facing the whole group. "Yeah, all right."

*

The woman, who introduces herself as Alice, takes Rhiannon to a pub just down the road and settles them in a corner table with their pints. They start out with a bit of small talk, which is entirely unremarkable right up until Rhiannon asks Alice if she's got kids. Alice's expression closes down; Rhiannon knows the answer before she even speaks.

"I did."

Rhiannon draws breath to offer condolences, but Alice cuts her off sharply. "No. Don't be sympathetic at me. I can take anything except that."

Rhiannon nods. She can understand that. "I lost my baby brother three months ago," she says. "I still can't stand hearin' people say how sorry they are." She can't imagine if she lost David or Mica, or god forbid, both. She wouldn't even be able to get out of bed in the morning. There'd be no point.

They drink in silence together for a minute or two after that. Alice drinks faster; when she puts her pint down, it's half gone. Rhiannon'd like to match her speed for speed, but she drove tonight. Getting pissed is the last thing she needs to be doing.

"He was a believer," she says. "My brother. At least he was when we were younger. He said a few years ago he'd got over it, but. Come to find out, I didn't know him very well anymore. We hadn't been close in a long time. I dunno if he was close with anyone." She thinks of Gwen Cooper, earnestly talking about Ianto's dad the tailor.

"So you decided to come to a meeting."

"Yeah. I thought maybe . . . it's stupid, but I thought maybe I'd find something of him there." She grimaces slightly. It sounds even soppier out loud than it had in her head.

"It's not stupid." Alice sips her pint. "We believe because of who we are. My parents raised me to believe, but most people don't have that advantage. They have to come to it themselves, after they start looking around and realizing the world isn't right. The stars are only a small part of it. Mum taught me to how find the things that don't make sense. Maybe your brother taught himself."

"He said something like that once," Rhiannon says. "About how if you looked at all the edges you'd start findin' the holes." Then Johnny came in, she remembers, and started laughing at him in that way he has with people he likes that Ianto never understood. Ianto had clammed right up and she'd never heard him really talk about the stars again. Looking back at it now, she wishes she'd told Johnny to shut up.

Alice nods. "My father doesn't exist."

Rhiannon pauses, trying to process this. ". . . he what?"

"Doesn't exist," Alice repeats. "I have all these feelings and bits of memory just floating around in my head, like they used to be attached to someone and aren't anymore. I loved him and was angry at him and I hate him more than anything, and I have a necklace that I remember Mum saying he gave her for her twenty-fifth birthday. But there's no name or face because he was never here. I shouldn't even exist, but here I am. And if he and Mum hadn't taught me to pay attention, I'd have convinced myself ages ago that he ran off when I was little and I made up all sorts of things to make myself feel better." She smiles thinly. "Which is exactly what you're thinking right now."

Rhiannon reddens. Alice is right. "I - that's why I didn't go in. I've got no poker face, me, you'd have all known in a heartbeat that I didn't believe. But I didn't go to make fun."

"I know." Alice shrugs. "You're not ready, nothing wrong with that. It's terrifying to admit that the world doesn't make any sense. Everything in our heads fights it. But I'm not unique. Disappearances like my dad happen every day and they're happening more and more often. Dig around a little, you'll find all kinds of stories like mine. You might even have one yourself. How did your brother die?"

". . . I don't know," Rhiannon says.

( _Gwen stayed to help them sort things out after, to calm frightened kids and reassure even more frightened parents. David and Mica tolerated their own parents' embraces for a while before squirming away to watch telly. Rhiannon made tea and she and Gwen sat in the kitchen and -_ )

"He was a government official, it's classified."

( _"You never said how he died," Rhiannon said eventually. Gwen nodded, like she'd been expecting Rhiannon to ask._

 _"Technically, it's classified, but I don't really care about that right now," she began._

 _And then she said -_

 _And then she said -_ )

"Classified," Rhiannon says again, faintly.

( _She said -_

What did she say?)

Alice watches her quietly, unsurprised. "Meeting's still on for another twenty minutes or so," she offers, without so much as a hint of _I told you so_. Rhiannon can't answer right away.

"How did you know?" she asks, once she's found her voice again.

"I didn't," Alice admits. "Just a hunch. Once you've spent long enough looking for the holes, you get a feel for where they might be."

"But I _remember_ him," Rhiannon says. "Clear as day. Oh my god, he's not going to disappear, is he? I'm not going to lose him again?"

"I don't know," Alice says. "Probably not. You don't remember how he died because it involved someone who's disappeared since. The dead don't disappear as often. It's hard to stop existing when you've already done it once."

"This is still ridiculous," Rhiannon whispers, and most of her believes it.

But what did Gwen _say_?

"Absolutely ridiculous," Alice agrees. "The world shouldn't happen this way. But it does."

Rhiannon stares into her pint.

"All right," she says finally. "Let's see about this meeting."


End file.
